Problems loom for adult students being moved back to high school

With recently announced cuts to education by the Ford government, those using adult education sites in the TLDSB will be affected.

Four of seven centres are being put back into area high schools in the Trillium Lakelands District School Board.

“These closures affect Bracebridge, Fenelon Falls, Gravenhurst, and Huntsville effective June 30 meaning those students will be forced back into the local high schools next fall if they choose to attend,” said Ontario Secondary School Federation President Colin Matthew.

He says the main issue is that a lot of people are in adult education centres because of problems during the first time through regular high school.

“This is a challenge,” says Matthew. “The people that attend school there are people who high school didn’t work out for them for one reason or another.”

He says putting these people back where they had the problems will threaten to repeat the issues.

“It’s really the location,” he offers, going on to say – “I’m right back in the high school I left in the first place.”

There are no firm numbers but hundreds of students will be affected by the cutbacks to adult learning.

“If I am being bullied in a high school or I can’t handle a building that has got 800 busybodies in it,” he says, offering the perspective of an adult education student. “I need a smaller more boutique experience almost.”

“We spend so much time in society as a whole talking about mental health and the way that we can support better mental health and support people who are struggling,” Matthew says. “It is not a case of everyone that is in those adult education centres now has mental health problems, but many of them do have anxiety. They’ve been bullied, that’s why they need out of the high schools.”

Matthew worries putting students back into normal high school streams is going to result in more problems for these students.

“There is a whole variety of issues that’s put them there in the first place,” he says. “Nobody really chooses to go from high school to an alternate site. Now that has been eliminated.”